Google Wave was supposed to make class discussions richer and more coherent. It was supposed to make research collaborations easier. It was supposed to break down walls between offices, disciplines, countries. It was even supposed to give learning-management systems such as Blackboard a run for their money.
Instead, it is kaput. Just over a year after being rolled out, the much-hyped Wave has crashed on the shores of indifference and is now set to recede into obscurity. Google said Thursday that it will stop selling Wave as a product and close the host website by the end of the year, citing a dearth of users.
A number of professors experimented with Wave. Raymond Schroeder, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service at the University of Illinois at Springfield, used Wave to bring together students from two of his classes — one on the cultural impact of the Internet and another on energy studies — to discuss how the prevalence of the Internet ties into perceptions of energy sustainability.
Schroeder was featured in a August 5, 2010, article by Inside Higher Ed.
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